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NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – New York author Harry Stein has a new book out and the title alone is provocative.

It’s called “No Matter What…They’ll Call This Book Racist: How our Fear of Talking Honestly About Race Hurts Us All” and WCBS 880 midday anchor Pat Farnack spoke with the author about the controversial topic.

“It’s tough to talk about. Look, the word ‘racist’ is used to shut down conversation, not to encourage it. If you say things which are deemed politically incorrect, you’ll get called a racist. You just have to understand that going in, and I have been called a racist in the past and God knows I’m being called a racist now for having written this book,” Stein told Farnack. “That said, I care enough about the future of the country and I think many others do as well, that it’s a conversation worth having and it’s a risk worth taking.”

“What has to end, that silence, that fear of talking about these issues, so that we can really begin to resolve them, and by the way that also means very much talking about culture and particularly the cultural norms and values in the inner-cities, which are very disruptive,” Stein said.

“Thank God Bill Cosby had the guts to talk about it, and he was also widely attacked. So, obviously it’s much harder for white people to talk about it. But if we care about the future of the country, we’ve got get beyond race, we’ve got to deal with these issues so that people who are really being battered in the inner-cities in particular can rise up and join the rest of society,” he told Farnack.

What do you think about the current state of race in America? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.